Which Way Is Up?

Which Way Is up?
Psalm 118:1-29; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Matthew 27:11-54

This past week marked the fiftieth anniversary of the well-known Disney song, “It’s a Small World.” We need a sequel: “It’s a short calendar.” Time seems to compress. Why, it was only yesterday.... Except yesterday was really a long time ago.

Speaking of a long time ago, do you remember the thrill as a child of marching into the sanctuary on Palm Sunday, waving the palm branches? How many of you wish you could to that today? After five Sundays of subdued Lenten discipline, we are all ready to break loose. We need a little celebration.

Except that Palm Sunday is not a rehearsal for Easter. So how are we to deal with it? Are we to suppress the joy? Are we supposed to rain on the Palm Sunday parade? After all, we know now the story comes out. It is a typical story line. We meet the characters, there is a conflict, the conflict takes a nasty turn, then the conflict is resolved. We know that, but the crowd that first Palm Sunday, hadn’t a clue what would happen in the next seven days.

The crowd seems to think that their Messiah has arrived – and if, as some scholars speculate, Pilate and his troops could have been entering the city through another gate – you can see how there might be some who were hoping Jesus would meet military force with divine force. Hosanna to the son of David. Hail to the one who comes to liberate the people!(1)

The conflict is set up. But the story doesn’t go according to “plan.” The triumphal entry is a momentary blip of excitement. Jesus doesn’t raise an army. He raises Cain. Jesus engages in several days of teaching and rabble rousing. According to Matthew’s telling of the story Jesus left the parade and immediately went to the Temple where he ran out the hucksters and the payday lenders. He already had a lot of black marks against him, but messing with the economy was the last straw for the people in power. He was betrayed, arrested, put through a sham trial, and executed.  The one hailed as Son of David was accorded a place among the enemies of the state who were executed by the powers and principalities – both religious and secular.  How does that reflect on the Palm Sunday victory parade? It is hardly more than photo op on Jesus’ journey to the cross.

We human beings are very good at grabbing the Palm Sunday celebrations of life and mistaking them for real victories. The real victories are disguised in surprising ways, ways that set our heads spinning, ways that turn things upside down. The eight days that begin today are a series of head-spinning reversals. By the end of the week we don’t know which way is up, which sets us up for one more massive reversal experienced in a variety of ways by those closest to Jesus. This roller coaster week ends with a transformational event of cataclysmic proportions.

Psalm 118 is about transformation. The psalmist recounts how things had changed for him:

In tight circumstances, I cried out to the Lord.
The Lord answered me with wide open spaces.

From that depth of need, the psalmist concludes with a call for praise and thanksgiving:

Give thanks to the Lord because he is good,
because he faithful love lasts forever.

The psalmist had experienced a transformation from defeat to victory:

I thank you because you answered me,
because you were my saving help.

When we contrast the words of the psalmist with the details of the last week, indeed the last day, of Jesus’ ministry, the psalm, in the words of Stephen Farris(2), becomes a metaphor for the magnificent reversal that takes place in the passion of Jesus Christ. And so it is also a metaphor for the experience of all those who trust in him.

Here’s a brief grammar lesson. A metaphor is a figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things or objects that are very different from each other but have some characteristics common between them. In other words, a resemblance of two different  or contradictory objects is made based on a single characteristic or a set of common characteristics.

The reversal metaphor can be applied to this week we call “Holy.” Cries of “Hosanna” become chants of “Crucify him.” A joyous welcome turns into a jeering rejection. Jesus is transformed from an irksome busybody in the eyes of the religious establishment into a cancer that must be surgically removed to save the patient. Following the raising of Lazarus, high priest Caiaphas said, “It is better for you that one man die for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed” (John 11:50)  Yet reversal and transformation also go from the negative to the positive, for Jesus is transformed from rejected to risen, or more simply, from death to resurrection.

This 118th Psalm anticipates this. That is why it is frequently cited by the New Testament writers, and surely was echoed by many early Christian writers whose work never made into the canon of scripture. Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and 1 Peter all have references the psalm’s verse 22:

The stone rejected by the builders
is now the main foundation stone!

The early church used this image as a metaphor both for the resurrection and for the establishment of the church founded on the life of the one who is both rejected and raised.

The “Hosannas” of the entrance into Jerusalem are not the “Hurrays” that we might use for an Olympic athlete, or a political candidate or office holder, or some glad tiding of great joy. “Hosanna” is actually a prayer. It is the rough transcription of the urgent imperative, pleading Hebrew phrase, “Save us, we beseech you!” Little did the crowd know that that was exactly what Jesus would do, albeit not in the way they might have expected (another great reversal). So it is little wonder that what seemed like “Hurrays” quickly faded into the violent calls for death. The triumphal entry turns into a trial before Pilate. The disciples thoroughly fail Jesus, scattering to the four winds, with the only one plucky enough to stick around denying his relationship to Jesus three times.

We fail him, too. We are reticent to claim him as our Lord. We hesitate to seek the grand entrance into the realm of God’s rule so vividly evoked by the psalmist’s call for the doors of the Temple to be opened wide. Rather than boldly proclaiming Christ and walking confidently into the power of his Spirit that he offers us, we slink into the shadows of creation and deny him if not by words, then by action or lack of action.

The “Hurray” fades from our lips. Surely the more sober prayer, “Save us,” is more appropriate. Save us form our sins. Save us from our indifference. Save us from our own failures to follow Jesus. Turn our worlds upside down and help us welcome the Christ into our lives a little more completely.

Anyone who in heart and mind accompanies Jesus through the week to come will find a world turned upside down. You will see the hand of God in all that follows in the story, and you will join the psalmist in singing at the top of your lungs:

Give thanks to the Lord because he is good,
because his faithful love lasts forever.

(1) Bob Cornwall, “Gathering Voices, The Thoughtful Christian Blog,” http://blog.thethoughtfulchristian.com/2014/04/triumphal-processions-and-rejected-stones-a-reflection-for-palm-sunday.html? Posted Tuesday, April 08, 2014 at 05:50 AM. 

(2) Stephen Farris, “Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, Volume 2, p. 149.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.